A nation building project par excellence, it would look to Canberra as its nearest major city for a host of goods and services ranging from paper clips and IT consultants to emergency medical facilities.

It would also create thousands of jobs that could be filled by local work seekers including tradespeople and the legions of savvy graduates our universities turn out year on year.

Coming, as it does, at a time when senior figures within the Federal Government believe public service jobs currently based in Canberra can be doled out across the country to shore up voting figures in wavering electorates, the scheme would be a welcome back stop for the local economy.

The original Snowy Mountains scheme, on which the latest proposal is intended to piggy back, remains the most ambitious, and one of the most expensive and yet cost effective, government initiatives in Australia's history.

Commenced 68 years ago in 1949, it's final cost, of $890 million in 1974 dollars, is worth about $7.74 billion today.

The proposed $2 billion spend on the upgrade, just over 25 per cent of the cost of the original project, is nothing to be sneezed at.

Although it would not involve the construction of additional dams, something that would be challenging given ongoing concerns over environmental flows within the river system, the Turnbull proposal would increase Snowy Hydro's generation capacity from 4100 megawatts to more than 6000.

Given Snowy Hydro is already Australia's largest source of renewable energy this would have to fare well in any diligent cost benefit analysis.

This is particularly the case given the proven ability of this technology to deliver massive benefits down the generations.

While many Coalition MPs were, as recently as Thursday, still supporting the addition of nuclear reactors to Australia's energy mix, the Snowy option is much more attractive.

Recent European experience suggests an equivalent nuclear plant would cost around $10 billion dollars and take decades to build. That said, the Chinese do build them quicker and cheaper.

The final build cost would be dwarfed by what would have to be spent in the event of a nuclear meltdown. Recent estimates of the cost of decommissioning Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant are in the $100 billion range. Chernobyl, which failed so dramatically in 1986, will not be decommissioned until 2064 at the earliest.

Even though the supercharged Snowy proposal is still at the concept stage with a feasibility study not due to be completed before the end of this year, it would make sense for Canberrans to take this very seriously.

Given opportunity rarely knocks twice, there is much to be said for a joint public and private sector response to the opportunities raised by this proposal.